Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1887-11-16
PEOPLE OF THE EARTH.
A Mine Of Interesting and Really
Valuable Information.

During the last fifty years the civilized
nations of the globe have taken much pains
to determine the number of their inhabit-
ants and the character and extent of the
industries in which they are engaged, writes
Duane Doty III the Chicago HerGid. The pc
rlodical enumerations of persons in Eu-
ropean countries and in the United States
furnish Us most of the trustworthy data
used in discussing and illustrating -oues-
tons IN social science and political economy
The published volumes of the census of the
United States for 1850, with which many
readers are familiar. are records of work
OF such magnitude as private enterprise
could never dream of undertaking. These
volumes are a mine of wealth to the student
OF social problems in South America,
and particularly in Asiatic and African
countries, we hav nothing like an European
census to which to refer, and in most cases
the statements of populations there are
merely estimates and only approximately
accurate. The views of missionaries, trav-
elers and intelligent public officials in those
remote lands, compiled by painstalxing
geographers and statisticians. guide us
when speaking of Oriental populations.
For the following statement we have con-
suited the most recent accessible authori-
ties and estimates:
The earth has about forty-eight millions
OF square miles Of land surface, and sixteen
mllons Of these square miles are well
adapted 20 the needs of settled populations,
and portions OF the vast remainder may be
occupied by the nomads for pasture lands
and by game. To people the sixteen mill
ions OF square miles us densely as Belgium,
Saxony and England are peopled, say 400
persons 20 the square mile, would require a
population OF 6,40J millions, or somewhat
M agrFn 4Ia.arn f,--s.
ton OF the entire globe. The United States
and Territories, if as densely peopled as
Belgium, would contain a population equal
to the present population of the world,
namely, fifteen hundred millions The
State OF Texas alone, if as donsely peOpled
as Massachusetts, would have a population
equal to the present population of our whole
country. Few realize that Texas is u third
larger than France
The question OF the earth becoming over
peoplod has alarmed some writer's, but
there are reasons for believing that this is
an exceedingly improbable danger. The
more intelligent and enlightened a nation
becomes the less rapid is ITS increase IN the /
humber Of children. The tendercy is TO
smaller families and as the race is staadilv
improving the increase in its numbers viii
be propor-ionately less. Our best thInlscrs
have no fears that population will evol. c,l-
ceed the number which can comfortably
subsist upon the earth's products.
The present population of the earth is
L500,0o0o.0o1, and it is increasing to-day at
tie rate OF l2,C00,O30 u year. Forty years
ago the estimate Of the number of the
world inhabitants was 1,oO0,0O0,O00. Bet
ter modes Of life and the facilities with
which food products are transported every
where have not only much increased the
average duration of human life but SO
lessened the death rate in the better care
Of children that population is steadily in
creasing. 1t IS now generally believed that
the population of the Chinese Empire has
been overcstimated. Conceding the over
estimate to have been 500O0,OO0, we have